Gold Inflation and What Can Be Done

Amottica · March 2022

kargen27 wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

ZeroDPS wrote: »

main reason for gold inflation is CROWN SELLING for ingame gold. That's it!

Crown selling itself doesn’t increase the amount of gold in the game. It just transfers it.

There doesn’t seem to be wide spread inflation. It’s a limited number of items that are in high demand. In some cases they have a limited means to obtain which in itself limited supply which would drive up prices.

In all cases, everyone can farm items in game ans take control of the situation for themselves.

It did have kind of a 2nd hand cause of certain materials increasing. I know many players that were reluctant to purchase crown exclusive homes took advantage when homes could be gifted. That led to an increased demand for materials for furniture. That was just supply and demand though. As you said the gold only transferred it wasn't created.

While some of the materials that sell for a high price is due to furnishings, regardless of what effect or non-effect the crowns for gold sales have had. However, it extends beyond housing since Chromium is not used for housing.

Regardless, the solution to finding something that is selling for more than one wants to pay is to farm it themselves. If someone is unwilling to put the time in to farming or pay someone else the going rate then they are choosing to go without.

bmnoble · March 2022

Amottica wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

ZeroDPS wrote: »

main reason for gold inflation is CROWN SELLING for ingame gold. That's it!

Crown selling itself doesn’t increase the amount of gold in the game. It just transfers it.

There doesn’t seem to be wide spread inflation. It’s a limited number of items that are in high demand. In some cases they have a limited means to obtain which in itself limited supply which would drive up prices.

In all cases, everyone can farm items in game ans take control of the situation for themselves.

It did have kind of a 2nd hand cause of certain materials increasing. I know many players that were reluctant to purchase crown exclusive homes took advantage when homes could be gifted. That led to an increased demand for materials for furniture. That was just supply and demand though. As you said the gold only transferred it wasn't created.

While some of the materials that sell for a high price is due to furnishings, regardless of what effect or non-effect the crowns for gold sales have had. However, it extends beyond housing since Chromium is not used for housing.

Regardless, the solution to finding something that is selling for more than one wants to pay is to farm it themselves. If someone is unwilling to put the time in to farming or pay someone else the going rate then they are choosing to go without.

There are furniture plans that use Chromium plating's.

Mayrael · March 2022

Iron_Warrior wrote: »

Pc market has inflation, console market is stable

Pc has add ones, consoles don't have add ones

So now tell me what is causing inflation on pc? You give me the answer

I'm not saying that what you write is irrelevant, but the economy even in the game is a much more complicated phenomenon and is influenced by many more factors than you think.

Growing population, less supply of the most desirable goods, more people trying to maximize their toons, leading to increased demand, and so on.

It's not that everything is x times more expensive now, just some things, which means it's not typical inflation where gold loses value. There are some goods that are more expensive now because there is more demand for them.

Personally, I have noticed an increase in the prices of only some goods, while others are unchanged or even their prices have decreased.

Therefore, I would take a different approach. I would not limit the amount of gold you can get in the game, because it will hit the new players the hardest but I would increase the drop rate of the most desired items such as upgrade materials. This would lead to a decrease in the value of these items which would reverse the process, while also helping new players who are lacking these materials by allowing them to decide if they want to sell or use them.

Mayrael · March 2022

I might give one more example. I myself, when materials had a fairly stable price I actively traded them gradually getting rid of them, but since their price began to rise I stopped selling them because it is a kind of investment. If I sold them now for, say, 10k a piece, then after some time I could sell them for 15k a piece. What's more, if I needed some, I would still have to lose money on it, which is why I have been collecting them for a long time. I am certainly not the only player who has behaved similarly, which may be one of the things driving up the prices of such materials. Lower supply caused by players reacting to rising prices. A self-perpetuating mechanism. At such a moment it is necessary to react "from above" so that the supply of materials managed to saturate the market, leading to stabilization or even to its reduction. Seeing this, players will begin to massively get rid of materials accumulated over time, fearing losses, which will lead to even greater price reductions.

GOAT4EVAR · March 2022

Zos also needs to stop handing out free gold as a daily login reward.

Treeshka · March 2022

Since they say that they want a player driven community, they do not need to do anything towards economy in the game. Since a new player can also farm materials and get a Chromium Plating and sell it for expensive prices and get gold too.

But this inflation removes the ability to buy items by gold farming on your own. Like one can grind mobs that drops Alkahest and other trash items. When you sell everything you get considerable amount of gold in the past where you could buy a few things with them. Currently it is nothing since everything is expensive.

If they want to fight this inflation or anything similar. They should just add more and more gold sinks to the game. They should stop handing out free gold via daily rewards and events. They simply need to remove the gold from player's pockets.

hafgood · March 2022

No, players need to stop being entitled and accept that other players time is worth just ad muchbas their own time.

Then you stop thinking that prices are too high and accept you have to go and farm for yourself.

Plenty of people want a Ferrari (gold jewellery) but can't afford it, so make do with a Mercedes (purple jewellery) or Ford (blue jewellery). The game is no different, not everyone can, or indeed should, be able to afford everything.

But they can farm for those gold platings.

Part of the problem is a reliance on Internet builds and so everyone thinks everything has to be gold. It doesn't, but try telling people that.

rauyran · March 2022

Reducing the amount of gold in the game aims to rebalance by suppressing demand but I think the problem is on the supply side. The craft bag allows us to hoard an infinite amount of resources. As prices rise due to low supply the value of our hoarded wealth rises so we feel richer. The continual rise in price drives even more hoarding since there's the sense that you can always sell later at a higher price if you need the cash.

If there were a limit on the number of each resource that could be kept in the craft bag then we would see more supply entering the market, driving prices down. ZOS have limits everywhere else to prevent hoarding (standard inventory, limited chests, max event tickets, max transmutes) so I am really surprised they don't have limits on the craft bag.

Amottica · March 2022

bmnoble wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

ZeroDPS wrote: »

main reason for gold inflation is CROWN SELLING for ingame gold. That's it!

Crown selling itself doesn’t increase the amount of gold in the game. It just transfers it.

There doesn’t seem to be wide spread inflation. It’s a limited number of items that are in high demand. In some cases they have a limited means to obtain which in itself limited supply which would drive up prices.

In all cases, everyone can farm items in game ans take control of the situation for themselves.

It did have kind of a 2nd hand cause of certain materials increasing. I know many players that were reluctant to purchase crown exclusive homes took advantage when homes could be gifted. That led to an increased demand for materials for furniture. That was just supply and demand though. As you said the gold only transferred it wasn't created.

While some of the materials that sell for a high price is due to furnishings, regardless of what effect or non-effect the crowns for gold sales have had. However, it extends beyond housing since Chromium is not used for housing.

Regardless, the solution to finding something that is selling for more than one wants to pay is to farm it themselves. If someone is unwilling to put the time in to farming or pay someone else the going rate then they are choosing to go without.

There are furniture plans that use Chromium plating's.

Even better, but still does not change the message I was conveying.

We make a choice to buy these items for the going rate in gold or spend time farming them. Zenimax already gave us the solution.

Oh, and putting gold sinks or removing gold from the game somehow would only harm those that do not want to pay the current going rate. Those with the gold could care less because they have it and know how to make it.

Tra_Lalan · March 2022

targario wrote: »

Examples: (all below just random thoughs, and prices can be changed accordingly)

Upgrading should ask for some gold:
Blue to Purple, usual mats + 10k gold
Purple to Yellow, usual mats + 100k gold

Outfit system should require for more gold:
500 gold is now 5k
1k gold is now 10k
3k gold is now 30k

Transmutating should require more gold.

and obviously daily writs should give less money, or maybe less for multiple characters.

No, just no. You want all of us to earn less gold, and have higher costs of in game life? And this will stop the inflation?

So people are complaining that they can't afford something and the solution to this is: they should make less gold and they should pay more for everything? I really don't see logic in that.

Just leave the market as it is.

And If you really need to make new gold sinks, don't force them on all players (which includes new players that usually have very little gold). You could add some buyable features to guild halls and remove the gold from market there. Or give the endgamers an option to buy furniture slots to their houses for gold.

Lumenn · March 2022

Limiting the gold that new players can make certainly wouldn't help(either the economy or our new player count. Our lack of an auction house and having guild only merchants/zone chat as a selling mechanism can be off putting to many, especially those with anxiety (or similar) issues.

My tongue in cheek suggestion of making everything no drop and randomizing resource nodes would certainly do the trick. Nothing to buy and the hackers/farm bots wouldn't have an advantage on gear upgrades. But the outrage that would cause....the forums would literally explode.

Making the drop rates on purple/gold mats, heartwood, furniture mats, etc(things that sell) much higher would certainly help. With Zos's history of changing how (EVERY)things work every few months(a pattern I don't see stopping anytime soon), VERY low drop rates that makes farming yourself.... unpleasant....and the prevalence of bots(let's not pretend EVERYONE has spent countless hours of their OWN time farming mats. Many have but the big dog sellers? Might be just a FEW not factories here and there. Even consoles are getting more every day) new players found gold became the easiest/less time consuming thing to farm.

I've been playing for years, and the greedy little gamer gnome in me still has me looting every crate,barrel, sack I come across. I'm set for life in the game. Many of us are. But increase the drop rates on everything zos. Completely changing everything, just to do it again in a few months, can be exhausting for new players with your low drop rates. The days of EQ are long gone. Increase the drop rates, and yes, if you won't pay for G.M.'s randomize nodes at least to kill the bots. Should go a long way to help inflation, and maybe kill some of the more... unpleasant sides of ESO for new players.

purple-magicb16_ESO · March 2022

With regards to prices at guild traders, this is not inflation. Inflation isn't something that just happens. In real world there are motivating factors. The only things that are driving up prices at the guild traders are rarity and greed. If these items were more common, they would be farmed into oblivion and prices would drop drastically. We see it often during events with common items. Eventually they become garbage and no one wants them because they have 50 of them in their inventory already, why would they want another one?

Shop at the out of the way guild traders. My guild trader offers items for fair prices, but we're not in convenient, busy locations like Deshaan, Elden Root, Wayrest or Alinor. You know who shops at our guild trader? Resellers. I know this because when I look at my sales, I see the same guy has bought the exact same motif from me 4 or 5 times.

Arunei · March 2022

Lumenn wrote: »

Limiting the gold that new players can make certainly wouldn't help(either the economy or our new player count. Our lack of an auction house and having guild only merchants/zone chat as a selling mechanism can be off putting to many, especially those with anxiety (or similar) issues.

My tongue in cheek suggestion of making everything no drop and randomizing resource nodes would certainly do the trick. Nothing to buy and the hackers/farm bots wouldn't have an advantage on gear upgrades. But the outrage that would cause....the forums would literally explode.

Making the drop rates on purple/gold mats, heartwood, furniture mats, etc(things that sell) much higher would certainly help. With Zos's history of changing how (EVERY)things work every few months(a pattern I don't see stopping anytime soon), VERY low drop rates that makes farming yourself.... unpleasant....and the prevalence of bots(let's not pretend EVERYONE has spent countless hours of their OWN time farming mats. Many have but the big dog sellers? Might be just a FEW not factories here and there. Even consoles are getting more every day) new players found gold became the easiest/less time consuming thing to farm.

I've been playing for years, and the greedy little gamer gnome in me still has me looting every crate,barrel, sack I come across. I'm set for life in the game. Many of us are. But increase the drop rates on everything zos. Completely changing everything, just to do it again in a few months, can be exhausting for new players with your low drop rates. The days of EQ are long gone. Increase the drop rates, and yes, if you won't pay for G.M.'s randomize nodes at least to kill the bots. Should go a long way to help inflation, and maybe kill some of the more... unpleasant sides of ESO for new players.

This wouldn't help nearly as much as it would hurt. If what you mean is not every node would drop something and it's random which ones would, why would anyone waste their time farming mats? If I might spend an hour farming 150 nodes and only 50 drop something, I'm not going to waste my time doing it. Meanwhile the people using bots aren't using their own time actively farming, so it won't matter to them if they're getting fewer drops. And since bots clearly don't exist in the numbers to drop prices on things like tempers and Heartwood, if a large number of players stop farming, prices are going to go up since there will be less of these things coming into the market.

This would be the case even if most people didn't stop outright farming, too. Fewer returns on mats from every node just means even less supply while demand is still there, which would still lead to prices going up rather that down. If you want prices on things to do down you need to make them LESS rare and more likely to drop, rather than the other way around.

Making things harder to farm also makes it harder for people to get things for their own use, whether they're a new player or one who's been around for t a while.

TX12001rwb17_ESO · March 2022

They could make transmutes buyable or apply a tax to those with too much gold.

Make 99,999,999 the soft cap, going over it taxes you 10% of your wealth every day til you go below the cap or make costs 9f things from NPCs including repairs scale with your wealth.

fiender66 · March 2022

I'm a prevalently solo player.
Prices too high? Do not buy.
It's not as bread you cannot get along without.

Farm what you want/need/desire and always look for the more affordable, still good enough alternative. Your time is yours, and this way you spend it in game anyway.
Simple as that.

Lumenn · March 2022

Arunei wrote: »

Lumenn wrote: »

Limiting the gold that new players can make certainly wouldn't help(either the economy or our new player count. Our lack of an auction house and having guild only merchants/zone chat as a selling mechanism can be off putting to many, especially those with anxiety (or similar) issues.

My tongue in cheek suggestion of making everything no drop and randomizing resource nodes would certainly do the trick. Nothing to buy and the hackers/farm bots wouldn't have an advantage on gear upgrades. But the outrage that would cause....the forums would literally explode.

Making the drop rates on purple/gold mats, heartwood, furniture mats, etc(things that sell) much higher would certainly help. With Zos's history of changing how (EVERY)things work every few months(a pattern I don't see stopping anytime soon), VERY low drop rates that makes farming yourself.... unpleasant....and the prevalence of bots(let's not pretend EVERYONE has spent countless hours of their OWN time farming mats. Many have but the big dog sellers? Might be just a FEW not factories here and there. Even consoles are getting more every day) new players found gold became the easiest/less time consuming thing to farm.

I've been playing for years, and the greedy little gamer gnome in me still has me looting every crate,barrel, sack I come across. I'm set for life in the game. Many of us are. But increase the drop rates on everything zos. Completely changing everything, just to do it again in a few months, can be exhausting for new players with your low drop rates. The days of EQ are long gone. Increase the drop rates, and yes, if you won't pay for G.M.'s randomize nodes at least to kill the bots. Should go a long way to help inflation, and maybe kill some of the more... unpleasant sides of ESO for new players.

This wouldn't help nearly as much as it would hurt. If what you mean is not every node would drop something and it's random which ones would, why would anyone waste their time farming mats? If I might spend an hour farming 150 nodes and only 50 drop something, I'm not going to waste my time doing it. Meanwhile the people using bots aren't using their own time actively farming, so it won't matter to them if they're getting fewer drops. And since bots clearly don't exist in the numbers to drop prices on things like tempers and Heartwood, if a large number of players stop farming, prices are going to go up since there will be less of these things coming into the market.

This would be the case even if most people didn't stop outright farming, too. Fewer returns on mats from every node just means even less supply while demand is still there, which would still lead to prices going up rather that down. If you want prices on things to do down you need to make them LESS rare and more likely to drop, rather than the other way around.

Making things harder to farm also makes it harder for people to get things for their own use, whether they're a new player or one who's been around for t a while.

I'm not sure how you'd get randomize nodes means they wouldn't drop anything. Why even have a node if it's empty? [snip] I mean random locations. Would be harder to program a route on the bots. And yes, there are enough bots to affect prices. It doesn't take much, it's low work, and it's never ending. But bot farming is such a touchy subject on the forums.

Edit: autospell
Edit 2: add

Also in my suggestion to randomize resource nodes I stated one of two additions in conjunction WITH it, not alone. To make everything no drop(which would upset...quite a few players I did say) or increase drop rates. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

hafgood · March 2022

The idea of taxing those with over a certain amount of gold sounds good until you realise it will drive prices up higher.

Why?

Because those players with huge amounts of gold won't want to pay tax, so they will buy chromium, dreugh wax, anything that's likely to keep its value and then if they need money they can resell what they bought.

In the meantime for those without the limitless money prices will appear to increase rapidly due to the numbers of materials on the market decreasing.

So no, a rich tax won't help

Abigail · March 2022

What inflation? I don't see it ... but ...

My entire goal in ESO at this stage in my most elderly real life is just to hang out and piddle some.
I've got 10 alts of varying flavors, all in gold gear that I made or upgraded from drops. It's certainly not BIS, but absolutely adequate for the game I'm content I do.
I have absolutely no plans to make more than 10 alts. Period.
My alts are all 160 with all the crafting skills maxed 100%.
Doing 7 writs on 10 alts takes a bit of time, but I'm totally good with that (when logins don't take forever).
I do a ton of gathering and material surveys -- and collect treasure chests while I'm out.
Even though my alts are maxed out, I find dolmens another way of gathering -- inefficient, but relaxing -- and that's where I get all my zone treasure chests.
My alts have all done antiquities, so I can spot lockpicking treasure chests easily in delves and PDs -- more gathering And despite my handicaps, I can now pick Advanced and Master chests on first attempt nearly every time!

I realize my uber-casual approach to the game will spin few cookies, but it works for me. No inflation, and with no particular effort, I've built up a lot of gold that I seldom dip into.

Northwold · March 2022

Abigail wrote: »

What inflation? I don't see it ... but ...
My entire goal in ESO at this stage in my most elderly real life is just to hang out and piddle some.

I've got 10 alts of varying flavors, all in gold gear that I made or upgraded from drops. It's certainly not BIS, but absolutely adequate for the game I'm content I do.

I have absolutely no plans to make more than 10 alts. Period.

My alts are all 160 with all the crafting skills maxed 100%.

Doing 7 writs on 10 alts takes a bit of time, but I'm totally good with that (when logins don't take forever).

I do a ton of gathering and material surveys -- and collect treasure chests while I'm out.

Even though my alts are maxed out, I find dolmens another way of gathering -- inefficient, but relaxing -- and that's where I get all my zone treasure chests.

My alts have all done antiquities, so I can spot lockpicking treasure chests easily in delves and PDs -- more gathering And despite my handicaps, I can now pick Advanced and Master chests on first attempt nearly every time!

I realize my uber-casual approach to the game will spin few cookies, but it works for me. No inflation, and with no particular effort, I've built up a lot of gold that I seldom dip into.

One of the areas in which the issue becomes really problematic is housing -- a single player activity and one for which ZOS charges many players quite extraordinary amounts of real-world money.

It's arguably where the clash between ESO's single player mechanics (housing, harvesting) and its MMO mechanics (most especially selling items and the lack of a central auction house) become most acute because of the sheer quantity of obscure materials demanded by the furnishing recipes.

It looks like a push to buy furnishings from the Crown store.

You can do it within the existing systems. But the imbalance is pretty severe. It took me several years to furnish thieves oasis the way I wanted it, for example, largely on account of materials drop rates for items that you use a lot in housing (eg walls).

When a material like mundane runes (the drop rate for which, i THINK, has now been increased a bit) is essential and highly demanded for every structural item, you start getting pushed towards buying from guild stores. Even more so when things like walls are tied to regional style items like shimmering sand and the ivory clasp from Blackwood that, in the latter case, you can barely ever obtain except from dailies.

I don't know to what extent this is intentional. Certainly new furnishing plans show no signs of relenting on the pretty unreasonable requirements. But it is creating a real imbalance in the game that is starting to feel like a deliberate pushing of players to the crown store to be price gouged because the player economy is not set up to cater for these kinds of players. It doesn't leave a good taste in the mouth.

Abigail · March 2022

Northwold wrote: »

One of the areas in which the issue becomes really problematic is housing -- a single player activity and one for which ZOS charges many players quite extraordinary amounts of real-world money.

You make a very excellent point. I've got only a few houses scattered round in strategic locations. None are furnished and I use them only as free teleporting places. No inflation

Silversmith · March 2022

Your ideas would hamstring newer players.

This game does not have inflation.

End game gear doesn't require millions of gold and can be farmed by a new player in a few days.

mekops_ESO · March 2022

Pretty wealthy at this point and all it would take to knock me down a peg or two would be to give me a slot machine house furnishing that sinks gold and rewards semi-cool stuff like unique consumable emotes(toys), among other things, with a small chance of giving rare mats, or other rare things. I would easily blow 100m in there just seeing what drops. Doesnt even need to be a house item. Put in one in a town or something lol I am there.

Just give me a fun gold sink that isnt equitable or profitable, but I can have a blast doing it.

Tan9oSuccka · March 2022

Toxic_Hemlock wrote: »

Iron_Warrior wrote: »

Pc market has inflation, console market is stable

Pc has add ones, consoles don't have add ones

So now tell me what is causing inflation on pc? You give me the answer

Let the console crowd have add-ons?

If you are worried about inflation, sell crown crates for 500k -1 million each I'm guessing the inflation will take care of itself.

So, you would like to introduce the problem to two platforms that don’t have the issue? 😆

No thanks to changes to adding more gold drain to consoles.

TX12001rwb17_ESO · March 2022

hafgood wrote: »

The idea of taxing those with over a certain amount of gold sounds good until you realise it will drive prices up higher.

Why?

Because those players with huge amounts of gold won't want to pay tax, so they will buy chromium, dreugh wax, anything that's likely to keep its value and then if they need money they can resell what they bought.

In the meantime for those without the limitless money prices will appear to increase rapidly due to the numbers of materials on the market decreasing.

So no, a rich tax won't help

Then the solution is make valuable items like Chromium Plating's buyable from NPCs

OR

Make items only sellable once and then they are bound, this in addition to the tax would kill inflation.

Jeffrey530 · March 2022

Lumenn wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

Lumenn wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

Lumenn wrote: »

Limiting the gold that new players can make certainly wouldn't help(either the economy or our new player count. Our lack of an auction house and having guild only merchants/zone chat as a selling mechanism can be off putting to many, especially those with anxiety (or similar) issues.

My tongue in cheek suggestion of making everything no drop and randomizing resource nodes would certainly do the trick. Nothing to buy and the hackers/farm bots wouldn't have an advantage on gear upgrades. But the outrage that would cause....the forums would literally explode.

Making the drop rates on purple/gold mats, heartwood, furniture mats, etc(things that sell) much higher would certainly help. With Zos's history of changing how (EVERY)things work every few months(a pattern I don't see stopping anytime soon), VERY low drop rates that makes farming yourself.... unpleasant....and the prevalence of bots(let's not pretend EVERYONE has spent countless hours of their OWN time farming mats. Many have but the big dog sellers? Might be just a FEW not factories here and there. Even consoles are getting more every day) new players found gold became the easiest/less time consuming thing to farm.

I've been playing for years, and the greedy little gamer gnome in me still has me looting every crate,barrel, sack I come across. I'm set for life in the game. Many of us are. But increase the drop rates on everything zos. Completely changing everything, just to do it again in a few months, can be exhausting for new players with your low drop rates. The days of EQ are long gone. Increase the drop rates, and yes, if you won't pay for G.M.'s randomize nodes at least to kill the bots. Should go a long way to help inflation, and maybe kill some of the more... unpleasant sides of ESO for new players.

This wouldn't help nearly as much as it would hurt. If what you mean is not every node would drop something and it's random which ones would, why would anyone waste their time farming mats? If I might spend an hour farming 150 nodes and only 50 drop something, I'm not going to waste my time doing it. Meanwhile the people using bots aren't using their own time actively farming, so it won't matter to them if they're getting fewer drops. And since bots clearly don't exist in the numbers to drop prices on things like tempers and Heartwood, if a large number of players stop farming, prices are going to go up since there will be less of these things coming into the market.

This would be the case even if most people didn't stop outright farming, too. Fewer returns on mats from every node just means even less supply while demand is still there, which would still lead to prices going up rather that down. If you want prices on things to do down you need to make them LESS rare and more likely to drop, rather than the other way around.

Making things harder to farm also makes it harder for people to get things for their own use, whether they're a new player or one who's been around for t a while.

I'm not sure how you'd get randomize nodes means they wouldn't drop anything. Why even have a node if it's empty? [snip] I mean random locations. Would be harder to program a route on the bots. And yes, there are enough bots to affect prices. It doesn't take much, it's low work, and it's never ending. But bot farming is such a touchy subject on the forums.

Edit: autospell
Edit 2: add

Also in my suggestion to randomize resource nodes I stated one of two additions in conjunction WITH it, not alone. To make everything no drop(which would upset...quite a few players I did say) or increase drop rates. [snip]

[snip]

[snip]

um no you can't expect people to know what 'no drop' means lol, never have I seen it used in eso.

[edited to remove quote]

oregonrob · March 2022

Inflation is caused by demand exceeding supply. This causes prices to be bid up. A number of things could be contributing to this. Some casual players would rather spend their time playing rather than farming resources. When there are more casual players than farmers, this will bid the price up.

There is an artificial shortage. Aetherial Dust is an example I have been playing since 2018 and play almost every day, but I have only had four drops of the Dust and all of those were more than two years ago. I sold one for 100,000 gold a few years ago and kept the rest. Right now the Dust goes for 800,000. If the Dust dropped more, the price for it would drop as well.

The inflation can be addressed by reducing demand. That can be done either by increasing supply or removing gold.

Keep in mind ESO is complex game that can be played in a number of different ways. The economic game is one of them, which includes speculation of commodities which drives up the cost some of the craft materials used to make items gold. Another is the sale of crafted goods which also has an impact on supply of materials. Any change that is made to the system is going to have winners and losers just like in any economy. It makes no sense to blame players who are using the system to their advantage. They are just exceling at what they do in much the same fashion as someone excels at PVP or excels at soloing dungeons. Its just another skill.

The question should be, what economic decisions need to be made here that will benefit the majority of the players. And those decisions are not going to be as easy as it sounds because of cause and effect. For example, curbing speculation would require a limit on how much of a commodity any one person could own. This would require coding changes probably at the individual commodity level which could take away resources from other changes that the game needs. Or there just could be a blanket limit on how much of any commodity someone could own. Given how AWA has rolled out that could be just as problematic.

Lumenn · March 2022

Jeffrey530 wrote: »

Lumenn wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

Lumenn wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

Lumenn wrote: »

Limiting the gold that new players can make certainly wouldn't help(either the economy or our new player count. Our lack of an auction house and having guild only merchants/zone chat as a selling mechanism can be off putting to many, especially those with anxiety (or similar) issues.

My tongue in cheek suggestion of making everything no drop and randomizing resource nodes would certainly do the trick. Nothing to buy and the hackers/farm bots wouldn't have an advantage on gear upgrades. But the outrage that would cause....the forums would literally explode.

Making the drop rates on purple/gold mats, heartwood, furniture mats, etc(things that sell) much higher would certainly help. With Zos's history of changing how (EVERY)things work every few months(a pattern I don't see stopping anytime soon), VERY low drop rates that makes farming yourself.... unpleasant....and the prevalence of bots(let's not pretend EVERYONE has spent countless hours of their OWN time farming mats. Many have but the big dog sellers? Might be just a FEW not factories here and there. Even consoles are getting more every day) new players found gold became the easiest/less time consuming thing to farm.

I've been playing for years, and the greedy little gamer gnome in me still has me looting every crate,barrel, sack I come across. I'm set for life in the game. Many of us are. But increase the drop rates on everything zos. Completely changing everything, just to do it again in a few months, can be exhausting for new players with your low drop rates. The days of EQ are long gone. Increase the drop rates, and yes, if you won't pay for G.M.'s randomize nodes at least to kill the bots. Should go a long way to help inflation, and maybe kill some of the more... unpleasant sides of ESO for new players.

This wouldn't help nearly as much as it would hurt. If what you mean is not every node would drop something and it's random which ones would, why would anyone waste their time farming mats? If I might spend an hour farming 150 nodes and only 50 drop something, I'm not going to waste my time doing it. Meanwhile the people using bots aren't using their own time actively farming, so it won't matter to them if they're getting fewer drops. And since bots clearly don't exist in the numbers to drop prices on things like tempers and Heartwood, if a large number of players stop farming, prices are going to go up since there will be less of these things coming into the market.

This would be the case even if most people didn't stop outright farming, too. Fewer returns on mats from every node just means even less supply while demand is still there, which would still lead to prices going up rather that down. If you want prices on things to do down you need to make them LESS rare and more likely to drop, rather than the other way around.

Making things harder to farm also makes it harder for people to get things for their own use, whether they're a new player or one who's been around for t a while.

I'm not sure how you'd get randomize nodes means they wouldn't drop anything. Why even have a node if it's empty? [snip] I mean random locations. Would be harder to program a route on the bots. And yes, there are enough bots to affect prices. It doesn't take much, it's low work, and it's never ending. But bot farming is such a touchy subject on the forums.

Edit: autospell
Edit 2: add

Also in my suggestion to randomize resource nodes I stated one of two additions in conjunction WITH it, not alone. To make everything no drop(which would upset...quite a few players I did say) or increase drop rates. [snip]

[snip]

[snip]

um no you can't expect people to know what 'no drop' means lol, never have I seen it used in eso.

Cool, many have And as I said earlier if one didn't know a 30 year old gaming term, others might not and explained. Glad I could help 👍

[edited to remove quote]

Oliviander · March 2022

It is easy !

There is no issue !

So don't fix it !

hafgood · March 2022

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

hafgood wrote: »

The idea of taxing those with over a certain amount of gold sounds good until you realise it will drive prices up higher.

Why?

Because those players with huge amounts of gold won't want to pay tax, so they will buy chromium, dreugh wax, anything that's likely to keep its value and then if they need money they can resell what they bought.

In the meantime for those without the limitless money prices will appear to increase rapidly due to the numbers of materials on the market decreasing.

So no, a rich tax won't help

Then the solution is make valuable items like Chromium Plating's buyable from NPCs

OR

Make items only sellable once and then they are bound, this in addition to the tax would kill inflation.

No.

The solution is to farm the platings yourself. It's easy enough to do, do your jewellery surveys and harvest every jewellery node you see. When you feel like it refine them and voila free platings.

I'm afraid I cannot agree with making them buyable from an NPC, Zos are unlikely to sanction this as it kills the free market.

And again items should be sellable more than once, you might buy them for another player or donate to a guild to auction. In addition extra space would be needed as they would have to be in separate stacks to those unbound and the coding would need to be changed to make it use bound platings first. So this would be a nightmare for those without eso plus and the extra space needed for every player who ever purchases materials would be a nightmare, the crafting bag could literally double in the number of rows in it which would have a massive impact on performance

Etny2k · March 2022

You could leave the store as it is with its normal income and introduce even more mounts and skins in a new loot box that is only purchasable with gold.